Prey Review

Operating as a re-boot of an 11 year old game, Prey (2017) is an intriguing and well-crafted delve into an alternative future where space exploration is a larger priority to mankind.

The game takes place on Talos I, a space station being used to research a hostile alien species known as the the Typhon. Playing as Morgan Yu (either male or female), you awake on Talos I and begin quickly discovering that things are going terribly wrong. The Typhon have broke containment, many of the researchers and workers upon Talos I have been killed, and you have lost your memories thanks to certain experimentation that raises a lot of questions about your role within the hierarchy of Talos I and who you can and can not trust.

Developed by Arkane Studios, Prey’s gameplay and environments take a lot of inspiration from other games, most notably the Bioshock or System Shock franchises. The game functions as an FPS, RPG and horror hybrid with a lot of influences from other genres impacting the way you can play. The environment is mostly open with some areas blocked off until certain story beats have been reached or until you have acquired the necessary power to get through.

Prey has a lot of great things to offer to any player thinking of picking up this title, although it isn’t without its flaws. Having said that, the ways in which Prey excels can be staggering at times and I would struggle to think of a person I wouldn’t recommend this game to.

Matching the Mimics in ability to impress me was the game’s “Looking Glass” technology. Already spoiled by the game’s promo footage, the Looking Glass technology is a glass pane that projects an accurate simulation, no matter what angle you observe it from. The looking glass tech blends in perfectly with the environment. A window that looks out onto a cityscape can be smashed to discover no such cityscape exists. A fish tank built into a wall may not actually exist at all.

The world design is also on point. The space station you’re exploring feels real in the best of ways. It’s all the small details and extra effort that obviously went in to meticulously crafting this game that is so impressive. Any sign you walk past, any email you skim over, every character that exists, even those that are dead or possessed, has a reason for existing. The world feels like a a real, lived-in space. The slower you explore the environments around you, the more finite of details you will uncover and the greater your appreciation of the game’s design will grow. Also… Prey just looks phenomenal, I guess that needs to be said.

Neuromods are also a really cool gameplay addition to Prey, allowing you to boost specific attributes or gain abilities. This isn’t necessarily new territory for video games, but when harnessing alien abilities comes into play, it really grows into something special. Taking the Mimic’s ability to morph into any prop in the environment is as stupidly fun as it sounds, and much like everything else in Prey, this ability has more implications than you may think.

I’m going to finish my line of praise for Prey by pointing to how well recycling and fabrication worked in the game. As you explored the environment you will pick up items of varying worth: ammo, health, weaponry, junk. Those items can be placed into a recycler and broken down into one of four components. Those components are then used to fabricate new items such as ammo, health or Neuromods. The system works fantastically but it also forces the player to define what they find most valuable. No doubt ammo and health are great, but Neuromods are essentially skill points in this game, and crafting anything removes components that you may need to craft something else.

Whilst Prey is seriously good in all these ways and more, I can’t avoid discussing its downsides any longer.

Some of the more minor issues I had tended to focus around audio. Don’t get me wrong, Prey had some seriously killer audio sequences (such as the opening helicopter ride). However, Prey tends to have an issue with blending audio as you move from one room to the next. All too frequently I would be taken aback when the loud grumble of sound resonating out of a generator would immediately vanish as I took a step into the next room. It was odd and particularly jarring when compared to the quality of Prey’s other aspects. Keeping with the minor issue theme, I also sometimes struggled with backtracking and hunting down side quests through Talos I. This issue arose primarily because the space station is surprisingly big and sometimes difficult to navigate when you have to deal with obstacles such as platforming or zero gravity. The space station design was good and had a lot of interconnected areas and shortcuts that could be unlocked, although it didn’t entirely alleviate the issue.